While We Were Out: Shadows Fall, Prince, Lady Gaga

Tuesday

Aug 20, 2013 at 3:15 PMAug 20, 2013 at 3:25 PM

We were a little surprised to come back after a week away to news that's probably of great interest to local hard-core fans: Jon Donais, one of the founding members of Western Mass. rock outfit Shadows Fall, is the new guitarist for Anthrax, according to a report on MassLive.com.

According to the site, Donais has been filling in since guitarist Rob Caggiano's departure from Anthrax in January. The article is unclear as to whether Donais will also be continuing with Shadows Fall, and there was no mention of the news on the band's official website. According to both the website and the article, Shadows Fall begins a fall tour with Hatebreed and The Acacia Strain on Sept. 26 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. There are no listed upcoming dates for The Palladium — the band's normal stop in Worcester — but it'll inevitably come around again.

We ran into former Worcester poetry slam veteran Gary Hoare Sunday night at poet Dave Keali'I's — formerly of Worcester, currently of Hawaii — excellent performance for The Poets' Asylum, and he informed us that we had to check out the sample of Prince's new single “Breakfast Can Wait” — not just because the song's great (although it's very Prince) — but because it's hilarious that the sample art is comedian Dave Chapelle dressed up as Prince in comedian Charlie Murphy's hilarious sketch about playing basketball against the Purple One.

If you've never seen the sketch, which is amongst the funniest things ever aired on television, you can watch it here. We can't embed it here because of language concerns, but the gist is: Don't mess with Prince, especially on the basketball court.

And for those who might wonder why Hoare was so excited about the video, one need only look at the video of his poem “Purple America” that the Telegram recorded a few years ago to understand the depths of his Prince love.

The newest video from pop sensation Lady Gaga, “applause,” has been getting a few hard knocks from critics, more than a few of whom have derided it as “EDM trash.” And they're not entirely wrong:

Still, it's been fascinating watching Gaga deconstruct the entire pop star phenomenon over the course of years, including some interesting work playing with some of the worst tropes of '80s pop music on 2011's “Born This Way.” (The title song was basically a remade Madonna sound, the song “Nebraska” was a spin in John Cougar Mellencamp's territory, and “Edge of Glory” was an '80s power ballad, complete with Clarence Clemons on saxophone.)

Here, though, she seems to be reaching the apex of her statement, talking about the addictive quality of fame and batting aside critics. Sings Gaga, “I've overheard your theory “nostalgia's for geeks”/ I guess sir, if you say so, some of us just like to read/ One second I'm a Koons, then suddenly the Koons is me/ Pop culture was in art, now art's in pop culture in me.”

It's usually dangerous to conflate the song's persona with its performer, but it's hard not to see a statement like that as deliberately provocative, a blatant castigation of how pop music is critiqued. Over the course of several albums, Gaga has toyed with her audience's perception of what constitutes a pop song, and what pop stardom means. Now, with her forthcoming album, “ARTPOP,” she seems to be bringing that thread to a head, and asking serious questions about the arbitrary line between pop culture and high art. It's a dichotomy worth exploring, and Gaga is an artist that's entirely capable of making a powerful and provocative statement on the subject. Frankly, we're looking forward to seeing where she's going. If nothing else, it's almost guaranteed to be entertaining. (Victor D. Infante, with Jorge Bannister)